I wanted to be in the army or a spy in the intelligence service.

To be able to play the piano like Artur Schnabel.

I already had a career when I was growing up.

A ballet dancer. I danced from age two to 19. Giving up was not a choice; I had complications in an ankle operation.

Anyhow, I think when you have a novel to write again, it will begin visiting you, whispering, “Write me.” Till then, no jumper cable, not even a lightning bolt, can bring it into being.

Either you’re listening out for the kids or you’re writing. So I wrote when the kids went to bed. I wrote between nine and midnight those years. And my husband would listen out if the little guy was sick or something. It worked out.

Because, yeah, I am afraid of madness. It’s scary.

Charles Dickens. Jane Austen. And then, when I finally learned to read her, Virginia Woolf. Shoot for the top, always. You know you’ll never make it, but what’s the fun if you don’t shoot for the top?

For a serious writer seriously concerned about any moral, social, political, environmental issues, it is a major concern. I’ve been wrestling with it ever since I was 18.

But I will be horrified by the way I say kind of and like, and I keep qualifying everything. That’s very feminine. I would like to say it plain, but it always comes out with all these silly qualifiers.